Alex Nunez and the fabulous Paige Micalchuk
by Facemash
Summary: Paige starts work the movie theater at the mall and she and Alex get closer.  Alex's point of view.
1. Chapter 1

Oh no no no. Just shoot me now. I watched Paige Micalchuk walk into the office of _my_ boss Meeri, and the door shut, and I thought: _No fucking way._ I was not going to work with Paige. Perfect Paige. Cheerleader Paige. Popular Paige. I was so far from being a cheerleader it wasn't even funny. I didn't give a crap whether some Degrassi team won or not, never mind cheer for it.

So maybe I banged shit around when I was cleaning up and maybe I was a little rude to customers while I stared at that blank gray door. Of course she would get the job if she wanted it. From what I could tell Paige Micalchuk always got what she wanted.

So fine. Whatever. Why was I letting it bother me? It couldn't be because I was always secretly afraid of Paige? No, it couldn't be that. Maybe she was a little bit…beautiful…but so what? It was crazy to think Paige swung that way and even crazier to think she might be interested in me so I wouldn't think it.

That gray door had been shut an awfully long time. I glared at it. No. I didn't want to work with her. One rude, annoying customer after another came up and I bit my tongue, I was professional and nice and goddamn it would they ever come out of there?

"Hey, gorgeous," I swung around and looked up at Jay. What had I ever seen in him? He was a criminal. He was the kind of guy my mother dated, no wonder she liked him so much, hung all over him like white trash. He grinned at me and I saw that he hadn't shaved in a while.

"What are you doing here?" I said, and stared him down. He backed up a little like he always did when I gave him that look. I wasn't even sure he was aware that he was doing it.

"What? Can't I come see you?" That fake innocence of his just grated on my nerves.

"I'm working,"

"Okay. I'll see you after," he went and I watched him go, watched him blend into the crowd. The thing was I'd probably hang out with him after because I had no one else, I had nothing else. I wasn't exactly overwhelmed with friends.

"Alex, this is Paige. You'll be working with her," Meeri had somehow materialized at my elbow and I nearly gasped, would have jumped a mile if I wasn't so good at hiding my surprise. I gave Paige my sideways glance and she looked as thrilled to see me as I was to work with her. Meeri wasn't dumb, I could see her sensing the tension between us and dismissing it all with one cock of her eyebrow.

Paige slunk away. Slunk. Shoulders up, eyes wide, hands balled up in the sleeves of her sweatshirt. I don't believe I'd ever seen Paige slink away from anything. Saunter, yes. Strut, definitely. Swagger and march, hell yeah. But slink? Slink? I watched her leave, blond head bent down, and I thought, _maybe she's human, too._ I thought maybe this could work out.


	2. Chapter 2

I knew Paige was coming to work today, I'd seen the schedule. So fine. Just because I was working with her didn't mean I had to talk to her. I was all decked out in my uniform behind the counter just waiting for her arrival, and it annoyed me that my heart was beating so fast.

I saw her heading over with that patented Paige strut, blond hair bouncing as she walked. Even from this distance I could see the funny blue/green shade of her eyes.

"Hi," she said, looking down and then up at me. In a way I had the advantage, I'd been here longer, I knew how to deal with Meeri, I knew what I was doing.

"Hi," I said, short and sweet. That was about all the talking we'd need to do today. But I couldn't help sneaking glances, couldn't help noticing the blond highlights in her blond hair, the way she smiled at customers, the way she half-smiled at me.

So I broke down. She asked questions and I answered them, and for a half a minute I forgot that I was supposed to hate her and people like her and all they represented, and I smiled at her and got her full smile in return.

Then I see Spinner and all them coming toward us. The popular kids. Paige's little crew. Her boyfriend lapdog. I narrowed my eyes at Paige but she didn't notice, restocking the candies between customers. I narrowed my eyes at Spinner and all his little friends, they didn't notice either.

I swear Paige didn't see them until they were smack dab at the counter in front of her, and her baby talk to Spinner made me want to puke. I was glad I cut Jay loose. I didn't need him or all his shit. Looking at the shit-eating grin on Spinner's face I thought Paige should do the same. Screw them. Screw guys. They just want to fuck with you, that was all.

"More popcorn," Spinner was saying, "Stop halfway for butter," Paige was dutifully fulfilling all his requests and I was glaring at him now. Even his friends were looking at him like he was going too far. The only one who didn't seem to notice how obnoxious he was being was Paige.

"That's real nice, Spinner," Craig said to him.

"No," Spinner said, the cunning little look still on his face, "it's good training," At that Paige's shoulders slumped and she looked defeated and trapped, a look I'd seen on my mother's face about a hundred times. I don't know what prevented me from lunging over the counter and pounding on Spinner, but something must have. They walked away, over to the little metal tables set up a little ways away. _Good, go._ I watched Paige try to shrug it off, try to regain her composure. Neither seemed to be happening.

She explained to me that the cretin I just saw wasn't her boyfriend. I never understood this sort of denial, this sort of backwards reasoning. _That wasn't him. It was the drugs. It was the alcohol. It was the stress._ What is wrong with everybody? Bad behavior is still that person, you can't divide people like that, can't split them into how they act under these circumstances and how they act under those circumstances. Spinner was treating her like shit, and he was choosing to treat her like shit.

"I'd be shopping around for a new boyfriend," I told her. She licked her lips, and that sexy little song popped into my head, _Lips Like Morphine._ I suddenly wanted to taste those lips. I felt almost hypnotized by her sometimes. I shook my head. What a fucking dream. Christ.

"Well, why don't you take the garbage out to the back dumpster," I told her, she nodded, shoulders still rounded like that. I wanted to punch Spinner in his stupid face. Paige gathered up the garbage, the swollen black bags looking like they might split wide open.

Across the way, at the little metal tables, I saw Spinner walk by his friends and say something, but I couldn't hear what. Craig got up as he walked by, went up to him and shoved him. Paige held the garbage bags, stared at them, her mouth a little o of surprise.

"Looks like someone has the balls to stand up to him," I said, and she breathed out through her nose, shook her head. We both watched as the shove turned into a wrestling match and turned into a full out fight, both of them falling to the floor, Craig raising his arm and just pounding on Spinner like I'd wanted to do. Craig was my new best friend. Paige ran over to them with the garbage bags, tried to break them up. I could hear her from where I was, her high pitched pleading tone.

"C'mon, I work here!"

Then Meeri, with her stern little Meeri eyes. Threatened that she called security and made them go. She didn't call security but the bluff worked with spoiled little high school kids. I laughed to myself, Spinner got what he had coming, though I would have liked to have been the one who did it.

Then Meeri fired Paige, and I could see her crestfallen look, her wide-eyed stricken face. Paige left, the garbage bags forgotten where the fight had been, and I watched her go. She walked slow, blond hair limp against her back.

I walked fast over to Meeri, and she turned her stern little eyes on me.

"Meeri, Paige had nothing to do with that fight,"

It was too early for this, Meeri gave me that steely eyed stare.

"Not now, Alex," she said, and marched away. I picked up the garbage bags and brought them to the dumpster, and fully planned on having a long talk with Meeri at closing time, a long talk about responsibility and blame and fairness. I'd get Paige's job back for her, and it looked like Spinner was doing a pretty good job of seeing that she would become unattached.


	3. Chapter 3

Work. The stupid movie theater concession stand. Bad polyester uniform. I hate it. Like everything hateful in my life, like school, like my mother's boyfriends, like all that shit. And I hate to admit that I've been looking forward to it.

Paige leans over the counter and I can see her faint reflection in the glass she's leaning on, a faint upside down Paige. Her blond hair is swept up in a loose ponytail, and I'm fascinated with that blond hair. It shines like the sun. She smells like juicy fruit and flowers. It makes my stomach cramp.

"So I said, 'Spin, I've had enough of you,' " she said in this casual voice, a sad look in her eyes but she smiles at me. My breath catches in my throat. I think the dumb thought, the thought that I'd treat her so much better than Spinner ever could, than anyone ever could. I'd get her a big popcorn with as much butter on it as she wants.

"Good," I say in my best tough voice, busying myself with stocking gummi bears so I don't just flat out stare at her, "you didn't need him,"

"No, I know. But he was so sweet before. I don't know what happened,"

I don't say anything, just look at how the fluorescent lights make her hair look almost white, how her mascara slightly clumps at the edge of her eyelashes. The way she licks her lips and looks out over all the people milling around, the way she looks at me out of the corner of her eye.

Her friends don't come around today. Spinner and Craig are banned for a good week. It's supposed to be forever but people forget. Meeri relented quite easily about Paige's job. It was just a knee jerk reaction, her firing Paige like that.

"Where are all the people?" she said, wiping at the counter with a dirty rag, blurring her reflection.

"These movies suck. They must be at the hockey games," I said, and held her gaze. I kind of feel drunk when I look at her.

"Yeah," she laughs," my brother Dylan's been playing hockey since he could walk, maybe even before,"

We get a little rush around seven, bored parents dragging some sour faced ten year olds to the latest recycled Disney crap. Paige and me get a rhythm, ice and drinks and snacks and napkins, and it's smooth and fun and we move around each other like it's choreographed. She flashes her Paige queen bee smile at me and I can't help but smile back, can't help but feel the color burning up my cheeks. Can't help but wonder how I could ever have been afraid of her.

"Not bad, Micalchuk," I tell her when the rush died down and the movie started up. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve, tightened her ponytail, unwrapped another piece of juicy fruit gum.

"Not bad yourself," she said, and held out a stick of gum to me. I took it, put it in my mouth, tasted the smell I'd been inhaling all night.

Boy was Spinner an idiot. Most men were. Men and boys. Just clueless. Well fuck them. He didn't deserve Paige anyway. Not at all.

All these hours together, just the two of us behind the counter all night, and I still couldn't drink her in enough. I wanted to memorize the shade of her eyes, the pitch of her voice, the texture of her skin. I wanted to make her smile and laugh, look at me with her head tilted and her eyes down.

I wanted her. I knew it. And I knew I was in trouble. I was in deep and someone was gonna get hurt. Knowing my lousy luck it would probably be me.


	4. Chapter 4

Movie theatre people walk around. Mall shoppers in their fat pants, holding ugly purses. Meeri giving me the evil Meeri eye. Mindlessly I filled the popcorn tubs and cleaned out the fake cheese gunk from the thing. So Paige and Spinner broke up, so what? Paige had her eyes on someone new, and it wasn't me.

After the rush I kept looking around for things to do. Busywork. Kept looking at the perfect color of Paige's hair, a blond I would have killed for when I was a kid. I'd wanted to be that perfect blond girl.

She kept talking about Mr. O. , the student teacher. I kept looking at her funny beautiful eyes, blue like the sea.

"He didn't even notice me," she whined, and pouted. I wanted to bite her lower lip, the way it was pushed out like that.

I'd seen Mr. O. He taught one of my classes. If pushed I suppose I could see what Paige saw in him. He was young but older than us, he was carelessly sexy, he was sort of vulnerable and unsure of himself.

I was sure it wasn't true, him not noticing her. He had to pretend not to notice her or he'd get his butt fired, or kicked out of college. I narrowed my eyes at Paige. She never had any concept of the stakes.

"You and the furby just broke up. It's okay to be single for five minutes," I said, my voice tough. I was sure of myself. I was sure of the world and my place in it. If she wanted this Mr. O. guy of course she'd get him. Eventually. I cleaned the glass countertops and swept the floor, leaned on the counter and stared at Paige for a second. The red in her cheeks, the blond hairs that came loose around her forehead, the blue paint on her nails. I wanted things, too.

When Jay cheated on me with best friend Amy, that two-faced bitch, I was mad. I was mad because he was my boyfriend and Amy was my friend and they screwed me over, but deep down I didn't care. Jay didn't matter to me like Paige does. Jay didn't make me feel like I'd never seen the world for what it was until I saw him. Paige did. She opened my eyes. I didn't know there were feelings like this until her.

She kept talking about Mr. O. and I felt myself getting jealous, this unreasoning ugly jealousy, and it was so real I could see it.

I wanted to shake her, yell at her, tell her to leave this guy alone. He was too old, he was too careless. It was wrong, even if it was right. What would be right would be for her to see me, see how I was feeling, how I couldn't help feeling. Where was this Mr.O? Out with some college girl? Out with some stupid friends? I was right here.

Still, I liked listening to her whine about guys, like the frustration in her voice. The frustration that echoed mine. Liked when she'd carelessly touch my hand or brush my shoulder or move a tendril of my hair behind my ear. I liked how she smelled like fruity gum and apple shampoo and something else sweet and dangerous that was just her.

So I chewed the gum she gave me and tried to convince her that Mr. O. did like her or didn't or whatever she wanted to hear. Felt myself caught in her gaze, caught up in her funny ideas and half-baked schemes. I wanted to kiss her but didn't want it to show on my face.

Then I saw Mr. O., he was walking right toward us, about to bust my illusion that Paige was becoming interested in me.


	5. Chapter 5

I listened to him say goofy things and flirt with her, call her his "favorite yoga student". I saw lust in his eyes. I gave him a knowing look, a 'get in line, buddy,' look but he didn't see. He was ignoring me. Then he sauntered off, and Paige stared after him, and I stared at her.

"You should go for it," I told her, " 'I just came to say hi to my favorite yoga student'? Please. He loves you,"

Paige leaned on the counter, looked up at me with a little lopsided smile and I smiled back. What the hell. She wanted this disaster, better she have it. I could pick up the pieces.

It was all work from then on out, despite the close proximity of _her_, her faint perfume and her juicy gum and her shiny blond hair, sea green eyes. I felt like my heart was broken, but I knew whatever hobbled thing she'd have with Mr. O. would never last. I could wait. I'd have to.

Movies all ending, and we cleaned up all the things that had to be cleaned. Nacho gunk, sweep the floor, the popcorn glass box, the hot dog rotisserie thing. I did it all fast, and wouldn't look at Paige even though I could feel her looking at me, felt her eyes burning into the back of my uniform.

Hazel showed up to drive Paige home and she looked at me with a sidelong sad little look and my heart kind of stopped beating for a second, and then painfully started again.

"Well, there's Hazel," she said, and I nodded.

"Okay, see ya," I said, my eyes bouncing off of Hazel, and Hazel didn't even give me a second glance. I shrugged. It was okay. I was used to that from her crowd.

Walking home because I didn't feel like taking the bus, and it never occurred to me to ask Hazel for a ride. I didn't need any ride from them, and in the cold night air, my arms wrapped around myself, it seemed unlikely that any of what I wanted to happen would happen. Paige was out of my reach, out of my league, and it was about time I started to process that particular truth.

Everyone was asleep when I got to my apartment, twisting the old key in the lock that was about to give out, pushing the door open. Only the T.V. was on, making the small living room look like a club with its blinking and flashing bluish light. Some random guy, another of mom's new "boyfriends" was basically passed out on the couch, his head so far back it looked like it was going to fall right off of his neck, his mouth wide open, drunken breath and drunken snores. I recoiled. He was disgusting. My mother was disgusting. This whole thing was disgusting.

In my narrow bed, alone. What did I expect? That Paige would actually be my girlfriend? That was what I expected. Right after she crashes and burns from this Mr. O. thing, right after all these things, when the stars and planets align, when the sun engulfs the moon. Fuck. It would never happen. Alone in my small room, and all the light from the crazy street outside seeping in, making it almost look like day, tears slid silently down my cheeks. Giving up was so hard. So hard. Damn Meeri for hiring her, for making me want her. I was better off with Jay, the cheating asshole. He was my league.

Dreamless sleep, the light in the room still visible on the inside of my lids, tattoos like sunspots. Twisting and turning on my narrow bed, and gradually falling into the deeper layers of sleep, pulled down like a drowning woman. That was what I was. In the deep levels I found Paige, her hair so shiny blond and perfect, her sea green gaze just for me, my name on her lips twisting my heart into another shape.

"Alex," she said, the x sound drawn out like a snake, and I may have smiled. So close to her, and somewhere in my brain I was unable to tell if this was really real or just really a dream.

"Paige Micalchuk," I answered her back, and leaned toward her to kiss her, and her lips were just as soft as I imagined, and tasted as sweet.


	6. Chapter 6

If she said one more word about Mr. O. I was going to scream. I leaned on the counter, blew the hair out of my eyes but it just fell right back. I couldn't help noticing the blue glitter eye shadow she wore, the glossy lipstick. Inside I was kind of crying, kind of wanting her so bad. Outside I looked slightly bored, nodded my head as she described kissing him and things he said and cute little things he did and really I wanted to puke.

In school I would glare at him, Mr. O. with his casually sexy messy hair and his little choker necklaces and his stoned eyes. The guy was stoned half the time, I could tell. The rambling type of lectures he gave when Simpson called him up there suddenly. He was high as a kite. That would never fly with Paige. I'd wait him out.

I watched the customers come and go, drift here and back again. Watched Paige as she filled up popcorn tubs and soda cups and handed out candy like Halloween. Watched the splash of the caramel colored soda, watched the deep gold of the butter as it sprayed onto the popcorn. Saw the little details. I noticed her silver rings getting greasy from the butter, noticed the dark red of her nail polish and the chips in it on her right hand. Saw the little gold necklace around her white neck and her name in little gold letters on it.

"So, are you seeing Mr. O. after work?" I didn't know why I asked questions like these, maybe just to torture myself. It was Friday. But I was glad at her crestfallen expression, the glossy lips pouting out again, the slump of her shoulders.

"No," she said slow, the word just a sigh. She didn't elaborate and I didn't question her further about it. I didn't care why she wasn't seeing him, I was just glad she wasn't.

"Oh, well," I said, looking at a random group of slouchy teenagers from some other school come out of one of the movies, watched them talking. I couldn't hear them but I saw the shapes their hands made in the air as they talked.

"Uh, so what are you doing after work?" I said, struggling to sound casual and bored and fucking cool like I know I could be. Held my breath, said little prayers. 'Don't say seeing Hazel, don't say that,'

"Nothing. Why? Do you want to do something?" Her ocean eyes looking right at me and I felt dizzy, and with her it was so casual. She was oblivious and I envied her.

"Yeah, sure," I said, and closed my eyes, felt happy.

The rest of the work night dragged by, the hours chopped off so slowly into the minutes and seconds. Every customer was a burden. I had to prevent myself from screaming at them. It was hard. I had such little self control.

Shift over, at last at last. We hung up our vests, changed into our real clothes in the bathroom in the back room. I watched her brush her hair, watched the hypnotic little fall of her hair over her shoulders. She puckered up her lips and painted them with a fresh coat of gloss. I was always holding my breath around her.

"So," she said, her eyes bright but tired, and I felt tired, too. It was a long day being in school and then working all night but I wasn't ready to let go, "what do you want to do?"

A shrug, a sort of half nod. I didn't care what we did, it would be enough to be with her, to hear her talk and watch her laugh and memorize the little things that were adding up fast. It would be enough.

"Play pool at Gillian's?" I said, Gillian's was the pool hall and bar and you had to be 18 to get in but I've never had a problem.

"Yeah," she said, "let's go,"

Gillian's was crowded and the waitresses in the short skirts came by with the tray of test tube shooters in neon blue and red and green. Paige took one and tilted her head back and drank it all. I held onto the pool cue and watched her swallow it, and the low lights overhead flashed off of her little gold necklace.


	7. Chapter 7

I wasn't used to this fear that I felt around her, this need for everything to go right. I wasn't used to noticing all the details and all the layers, all the little complexities. I was used to just gliding over the surface. Going this deep was going to hurt, I could tell. I already felt hurt.

Did she feel any of it? Did she feel what I felt? Sometimes I thought she did. It was in the way she looked at me, in the way she smiled at me, in the way she brushed up against me. I'd feel that electricity and I swore to God she could feel it, too. But maybe I was only lying to myself. Maybe she was blissfully unaware.

She lined up a neat little shot and sunk it in, smiled at me with those thousand watts. I smiled back, feeling the shooters I'd drank start to taint my judgment. Maybe I could stand behind her and show her how to line up the tricky shots. Maybe I could move a strand of her hair away from her face so gently with the tip of one finger. Brush my lips against her cheek. Maybe.

I hung onto my pool stick and watched her take more practice shots, watched the way her blond hair fell toward the soft green felt of the table. I prayed she wouldn't start talking about evil Mr. O., I prayed that none of her friends would come barging in and disturb us. I was selfish. I wanted her all to myself, even if I was the only one who knew it.

We played a real game and I could have easily won, but I missed a few easy shots and set up a few for her to get just to see her smile. She joked and laughed with me and I wished I could stay in the circle of her attention for longer, forever. I felt clingy to her.

I drove her home when it was time to go, and of course I was aware that her neighborhood was nicer than mine. Her house was nicer than my shit hole apartment. I could only begin to guess at how her parents were better than mine. I'd bet ten to one her dad didn't leave before she was even born. I bet her mom didn't get drunk and beat up by shit head drunk ass boyfriends she picked up at the nearest trashiest bar. I knew it wasn't like that in that clean, neat house.

In the dim interior light of the car she looked ethereal, her skin almost translucent. Her eyes an unreal shade of green. Her hair dark blond and nearly white where it was highlighted. I was transfixed, mesmerized. I slowly licked my lips and imagined tasting hers.

Her house seemed to loom over us and all we had for protection was the thin roof of my car. I imagined the angry faces of her parents in the windows.

I had both hands on the steering wheel. She sat in the passenger seat, the little half smile on her face. The moment stretched out long, like some gossamer string of taffy. I could feel my hair and nails growing, could feel the passage of time across my features, setting the lines in my face. All I wanted to do was touch her hand.

"Thanks. I had fun," she said, and it started out light and casual. I turned to look at her, taking my hands off the steering wheel.

"I mean it," she said, and now her voice was husky. It was thick and full of things, and I so wanted to kiss her because this was our first date. I wanted to walk her to her front door and stand on the stoop and kiss her. If I did that I thought I wouldn't be able to stand it.

"Yeah. I had fun, too," I said, wishing I could say more. Wishing I wasn't such a chicken shit that I wouldn't say more.

"See ya," she said, and maybe I imagined it in her voice but I thought her tone meant she didn't want to leave me right then. And she stayed for a few seconds more while I drank her in. Then she opened the door, letting the night into my car. I watched her head up the walk to her front door, watched the play of the moonlight on her back and on her hair, watched how she moved her legs and her arms when she walked.


End file.
